


im breaking the warning down

by mackdizzy



Category: The Boys in the Band (2020), The Boys in the Band - Crowley (Broadway 2018)
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Backstory, Fraternities & Sororities, Hazing, M/M, Smoking, no actual written smut just alluded sex, sexual content later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26858839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mackdizzy/pseuds/mackdizzy
Summary: 𝘐 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘴 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 '𝘵𝘪𝘭 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘒𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘖𝘩 𝘐, 𝘐'𝘮 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥, 𝘐'𝘮 𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘜𝘯𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵[ Michael and Alan's generic Georgetown backstory fic. Modern day AU, canon compliant in all other senses. ]
Relationships: thats a SURPRISE FOLKS.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 12





	1. times have changed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [discodancing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/discodancing/gifts).



> i am going to sob. 
> 
> I /hate/ to be one of those "liked it before it was cool" annoying assholes, but I cannot stress to you guys enough that I have had what you are about to see sitting in my google docs since MAY TWEN TEE EIGHT TEEN. This long-term-fic has been ENTIRELY storyboarded and mostly written, and will be released weekly while I work on didn't flap hard enough and the band fic.
> 
> I have been basically STALKING ao3 since the movie dropped to see any uptick in activity for fics on it, and I am significantly satisfied with what I've seen, though I am joining the party a little bit early. I've been waiting excitedly for this fandom to grow for YEARS now, and I am genuinely so happy they made this movie. I'm rambling a bit in these notes but I am genuinely just, so happy. 
> 
> This fic WILL contain sexual content; no written-out-smut (you'll have to see my alternate acc for that, my MOM reads this stuff), but there will be alluded-to-sex. Mostly tasteful fade-to-black type convenient cutsecenes. Please mind the other tags!
> 
> [Chapter titles to come later! I can't think rn]
> 
> [title and desc. lyrics from Nick Jonas's Warning]

If Michael Joseph Kelly knew that the room key he held was about to change his life, perhaps he’d have been more careful with it. 

He knew, of course, to think about things in the metaphorical sense; not the object itself but the potential it holds and yada yada yada. You didn’t become a creative writing major (well—double major, but the English was more for his own reputation) without knowing what a damned metaphor was anyway. 

The point was, Michael Joseph Kelly was currently patting himself down like some self-ordained police officer. Pockets, chest, and he’d even considered looking in his shoes, but no, that was a ridiculous idea. He’d given his bag no less than five look-overs, and by now it was a fruitless hope, a sort of admitting defeat without giving up as he stood awkwardly in the hallway outside room 108A, oncing himself over for the thousandth time.

“Can I help you?”

He almost jumped out of his skin. It was a light voice that floated on the air, yet it pierced the silence of the hallway with a sort of high-esteemed grandeur nonetheless. Turning around he saw the male in question who’d spoken, standing in the middle of the hall. Attractive;  _ but not in that way, I swear— _ with perfectly styled fluffy hair and a shirt buttoned incredibly low and a decent figure. He leaned on one side and his hand sat pompously on his hip, a screwed up, sarcastic smile painted on his features. 

“I’ve lost my room key.” Michael spoke back bitterly, sticking his hands in his pockets. His cheeks flushed red, a terrible habit, an awful habit, one he’d need to get rid of—and fast. 

Mysterious Man laughed for less than half a second before he pulled a bobby-pin out of his pocket and winked in Michael’s direction. “Oh, I take these everywhere.” He shrugged nonchalantly, most likely a response to Michael’s evident surprise. “Good for getting into trouble—getting out of it, too.” By now he had knelt next to his lock, working away at the gears before Michael could even protest how much trouble they could be getting themselves into. After a few seconds, a click, and the handle turned. Mysterious Man stood abruptly and put the pin back into his pocket. He was gone before Michael even had time to ask his name. 

_ Weird _ . He couldn’t help but remark, but he turned his attention to the room in front of him. He could fill his throat thicken, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. The door now open, he stepped into the room, certain that his future lay before it—for better or for worse.

**\--**

“You picked the lock?”

Immediately, a voice made Michael almost jump out of his skin (that's twice, today!). Not like the voice was particularly intimidating; it was smooth and almost graceful, not harsh and edgy like Mysterious Man outside. Still, the question was rough around the edges, and it wasn’t exactly a good introductory line. He tried to think of an excuse as quickly as possible, averting his eyes before he could even make contact.

“No, no, not me, there was a…a man outside, well a student, he just pulled a bobby-pin out of his pocket, and...and picked the lock.” He cleared his throat and finally got a proper look at his roommate, who now had one eyebrow raised.

A chill went down his spine.

It wasn’t the normal kind of chill. It wasn’t the feelings he’d been so apprehensively skirting around stronger and stronger since he was fourteen, the uncomfortable, leg-crossing, head-sweating churning in his gut he so hated. This was something so new, so intense, so unprecedented and sudden. He didn’t know where it came from, he didn’t know why it was here. He just onced-over the student he’d be  _ living with  _ for the next year at the very least, taking in as much as he could without having a complete mental breakdown.

Smartly dressed, perhaps even more smartly than him, in a sky blue button up and a white tie, long khakis, and those ten pound Cordovan shoes he’d always hated. He felt mildly underdressed; imagine, Michael, underdressed. He fought down the feeling in his stomach to smile and stick out his hand. “Michael. I’m Michael Joseph Kelly, I’m a double major, creative writing and English, um-“ He wasn’t sure what else to say, so he smiled awkwardly instead. His roommate smiled back, just as awkwardly as he did, and that fact comforted some.

“Alan McCarthy.” The handshake was met. “I’m Georgetown Law.”

_Georgetown Law?_ He even had to mention the college? Give him a break. This was going to be an interesting year; that he could tell.

“So.” Alan started, sitting down on the bed he’d already claimed with a custom knit blanket and his clothes in the drawers underneath. The window bed. Shit. He sat on the other one, just to be polite, and crossed his legs at the ankles, then quickly uncrossed them and planted them squarely—nervously—on the floor. Alan mirrored his posture, which he found rather confusing at best and slightly creepy at worse, but he brushed it off. “Roommates.”

“Yes, roommates.” Michael agreed, hoping he wasn’t sweating at the very concept. He’d be living with someone—with another man, they were  _ men  _ now—for almost an entire year. He plopped his bag onto the bed. “The rest of my stuff is coming later.” 

“Oh, I’ll go with you to get it.” Alan immediately volunteered.  _ A little desperate for friendship, huh?  _

“Well, thank you.” He nodded cordially, checking his watch. “It’s getting close to two now, actually, it should be here by now. Shall we?” 

He stood and brushed the dirt off his pants; probably wasn’t any there, anyway, but hygiene was of the utmost importance to him. As an afterthought, he thought he should definitely check the bathroom, see if there was enough cupboard space for his hairspray and his mousse and his concealer and shampoo and absolutely everything else. He dismissed the thought as quickly as it surfaced, filed it away for later, not wanting it to clog his brain. Not in the slightest.

As they walked through the hallway, past the spot where Mysterious Man had appeared, and to the stairs (“elevators give me the creeps”, Alan had admitted, to which he’d responded “Well, I’m scared of the inevitable aging process”, which was a batshit stupid answer but he’d felt obligated to share a fear anyway), Michael felt the need to keep up conversation. “Are you from around here?” He asked gently, thinking it wouldn’t be too heinous of a conversational piece.

“Yes, actually.” Alan said, raising a shoulder into the air. “We’ve been here for generations. All lawyers. I never felt any reason to do anything else.”

And to Michael, that was downright stupid; he hated tradition in general, hated the concept that since everyone in your horrific bloodline before you had done something you were obligated to do exactly the same. His father would’ve preferred him in the business major, absolutely, but he’d felt morally obligated to digress (because writing was his passion, but perhaps it has only become his passion to spite the man). He didn’t want to say anything like that in front of a man he was trying at the very least to get along with, and he was desperately trying to think of an adequate substitute when Alan ever so generously spoke for him. “And you?”

“Mississippi, actually. Small small town you’ve absolutely never heard of, but it’s close enough to Jackson.”

“Try me.”

“Hockobi?”

“No, frankly, I haven’t.”

Michael couldn't help but laugh. “Yeah, it’s...I’ve come a long way. All the way up North, and I aim to go further. Or to Hollywood.”

“Hollywood’s the dream?” Alan asked with quirked eyebrow, and he had to hold back from the old ‘Someone like  _ you  _ wouldn’t understand’.  _ Don’t jump the gun, Michael. Not yet.  _

“Writing movies.” He admitted, matching Alan’s earlier shrug. “I just love the cinema. My only escape from...Hockobi.” As if the town was a poison itself. “I want to give other people a piece of that joy.”

“Poetic.” Alan chuckled, and it was. Weirdly poetic, even for him, but something about Alan—his prestige, his pomposity—demanded it.

So there they were. Tradition and Liberalism. Both too prestigious, too awkward, too worried, too out-of-place, too so, so many things.

They’d reached the bottom of the stairs by them, and their duration in the lobby was quite uneventful. He stopped by the front desk and received his luggage tag—and, embarrassingly, a new room key—and they were off. Alan helped to carry half of it, which he really did find generous, pandering or not. 

It wasn’t until they reached the stairs that things started to get trippy.

“Tennis team? Tennis team? Anyone for the tennis team?”

It was easy enough to ignore whoever was soliciting them by the staircase. Michael was used to soliciting (he  _ was  _ Catholic, after all), and he hardly paid the voice any attention; not until Alan put out his arm and blocked his way, that is.

“Wait, wait. Let me take a look, I play tennis.” 

“You—you do?”

“A little bit, yeah. In highschool. But I could always get better, yeah?”

Michael felt that was a little strange, but those sporty types always were strange. He hadn’t pegged Alan down as a sporty type, but they’d only been together for an hour or so, so he really hadn’t had much time to do much philosophizing anyway. He watched cautiously as Alan went over to the boy handing out flyers.

Then his eyes widened.

It was Mysterious Man.

The two of them chatted it up, Michael hanging back. He had so many questions to ask whoever it was. He wasn’t even sure what they were. But when Alan skirted off to the stairs, a whole three flyers in his hands, Michael made sure to stop Mysterious Man in his tracks.

“Hey!” Mysterious Man said, raising an eyebrow. “Long time no see. How’d the room situation go?”

“Oh, well enough. That’s my roommate.” He gestured in Alan’s direction.

“Oh, Alan?” 

So they’d exchanged names already. “Yes, Alan. Do I have the privilege of a name exchange too?”

“I suppose so. What’s yours?” Mysterious Man all but shoved a flyer into his hand, which he couldn’t help but study carefully.

“Scribble your phone number on all these flyers?”

“No, just the top two.” He smirked in Michael’s direction and gestured towards Alan. It felt so strange to him, like Mysterious Man was about to send him on some Indiana Jones style quest. 

He couldn’t have imagined it any farther from the truth, really, as he stuck out his hand to shake just like he had with Alan. “I’m Michael. Michael Kelly. Pleasure to meet you for real, maybe I’ll stop by.” He waved the flyer. “Or maybe I’ll just text you tonight so you can give me my first mission.”

Mysterious man rolled his eyes, but he chuckled afterwards and met Michael’s handshake a lot more firmly than Alan had , shaking it vigorously.

“Justin Stewart. And trust me, the pleasure’s all mine.”

  
  
  



	2. and we’ve often rewound the clock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second chapter!! boy oh boy, is the pressure on. On the one hand, the support i've gotten for this fic so far is--overwhelming. it fills me with immense joy to know that people are following this work and interested in knowing where it goes.  
> on the other hand....stressful! that's stressful. there's been a bit of a delay getting this chapter to you guys as i want to ensure its the best it can be; i'm still not 100% proud of it, but we're going somewhere with this story at least, and i think the next chapter is both really strong and a /lot/ of fun.
> 
> we mainly dive a little more into Michael this chapter, and what makes him....him. a lot of it is inspired by the last line in the show. it's always allured me beyond compare. what da hell does dat mean. idk. gonna explore it some, probably. Mostly backstory stuff for a backstory fic, character analysis, et cetera. hang on, though, this ride is only just kicking off!
> 
> [chapter titles are coming soon. im a bit burned out rn.]

“Don’t go breaking your poor father’s heart now, Mikey.” 

Michael knew his dad was joking around with him, but it still filled his gut with a sense of unease. So much unease in his gut these days, so little place to direct it. How was he supposed to answer that?  _ Sorry I’m a failure, dad. In so many ways. Sorry I’m not a business major, or a better catholic, or a better  _ _ person. _

“Sorry.” He settled for, feeling it a rather empty excuse, a too-brief answer. Michael Joseph Kelly was not one to be brief; he never shut up, practically, not around the right people. But he’d left “the right people” behind in Hockobi, the very very few right people he had. Fellow academia lovers, a lot of preppy girls, and all the outcasts he could round up. It was a sad, sad crowd, and not a very big one either, but it was what he had in Hockobi. Now he was here, where everything was big and shiny and new, and if he played his cards right, he could find the right people and  _ keep  _ the right people as quickly as possible. 

There was an awkward silence on the other end of the phone, and Michael felt it his job to break it. “Have you heard from Angela lately?” 

It was the wrong question, and he knew it as soon as he said it. The silence on the other end of the phone only thickened. “Yes.” His dad said after what felt like an eternity. “She wanted to know how you were doing, actually.” 

He snorted. He hadn’t meant to snort in front of his dad, but he had nonetheless. His instincts sucked. He hadn’t heard from Angela—otherwise known as his  _ mother _ —since she’d walked out the door on Christmas morning when he was twelve. He’d been trying so hard to get a girlfriend, or whatever his twelve year old mind conceived as one. So hard. He just thought the gifts would help. But when he heard his parents screaming words he would never understand, he had burned the makeup case, the nail polish kits, the dolls in the backyard with the matches from Dad’s cigarette cupboard. She’d barely spoken to him since, and he’d stopped referring to her as “mom” by the time he’d entered highschool. So the thought that she’d wondered how he was doing was quite implausible. 

His dad heard the snort, and to his delight he snorted back. It was an odd sense of connection. He’d never felt incredibly connected to his father, not his whole life. But his dad had stuck by his side after Angela left, and however warily, Michael was grateful for that, at least.

“Listen, Dad, it’s getting late, I...I have to go. But thank you for calling me.” He meant it, sincerely. There was something in him that missed his dad’s face, and he ended up missing it even more when he heard the click of the ended call. But Alan was still here to provide some company, he reminded himself as he flopped onto the bed and closed his eyes. He had a headache.

“Who was that?” He heard Alan ask curiously.

“My dad.” Michael groaned, closing his eyes tighter. “He calls me like every night nowadays. All about checking up on his dear old son. Keeping tabs on me, more like it.” 

“Jesus.” Alan affirmed. “Been there, done that. My parents are crazy about that sort of thing. Get perfect grades, join the tennis team, have the prettiest prom date. I mean come on! The prettiest  _ prom date?  _ I’m just not...I’m just not that kind of person.” 

It was a bit of an outburst from Alan, and Michael was altogether surprised. His roommate had seemed much too pulled-together for that. But maybe Alan would just keep surprising him.

“By the way, speaking of phone calls.” Michael suddenly remembered, since they’d been in the room for a few hours now: “Did Justin write his number on your…..tennis flyer, or whatever?”

“What?” Alan sat bolt upright and looked quite alarmed, his eyes widening as soon as the question was popped. “Justin  _ Stewart?”  _

“Yes.” Michael responded, his lips tight. He wasn’t sure if this was because Alan had made  _ two  _ friends and he’d only made one, or...something else altogether, something he had no idea what to call. He lifted his flyer up, pointing to Justin’s neat script in bright red in the top corner. Alan did the same, and his eyes widened.

“Well, would you look at that. He did.” 

“No kidding.” Michael yawned, turning away and flopping back onto the pillow. He felt exceptionally tired. “Oh, you two seemed  _ terribly  _ into eachother, why don’t you give him a ring?”

He was joking, of course, but his tone was more bitter than anything, and he felt guilty, especially when Alan fell into red-cheeked silence. “Relax, relax. You did say you played tennis—you should text him about tryouts. I bet you’re great.”

He had absolutely no way to test the validity of that—and watching his roommate play sports seemed weird to him, at best, but that was possibly because he’d never played a sport in his life—but he just wanted to be encouraging. Alan seemed to take it in stride, though, because soon enough it was close to midnight and he was still texting away and giggling like a child the whole time.

Michael was equal parts pissed and curious.

Alan fell asleep— _ finally— _ a little past 12:15, but the incessant buzzing of his phone had yet to cease. 

  
  


Now, one thing to get clear: Michael Joseph Kelly was  _ not _ a snooper. Michael Joseph Kelly did not snoop. He was simply going to turn Alan’s phone off so he could get some sleep. It wasn’t his fault that when he picked it up, a text shone across the screen. It wasn’t his fault the text read  _ And don’t tell Michael.  _

_ That can wait for morning,  _ he decided, and that was the only part that might’ve actually been his fault. He shut off the phone and went to sleep without another word or thought on the matter.

He woke with the morning sun flitting through the shades. The sun cast an unholy brightness across his face, and on a  _ Saturday-- _ unheard of. He reached up to pull the shade down and go back to sleep, but it was hopeless. He sat up with a groan, brushing a few strands of hair out of his eyes, and he was surprised to see Alan by the mirror, buttoning up his shirt.

“What are you doing up? It’s barely eight.” He groaned, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “You don’t.... _ usually  _ get up this early, right?” Oh no. Oh no, no, no no no. No, that would be a complete disaster waiting to happen. He had a right mind to request a roommate transfer if Alan wanted to make it a habit of getting up at eight on Saturdays.

“Oh, no.” Alan laughed. “Justin...you know, Justin Stewart?” Alan snapped a few times. An awkward silence followed. Alan averted his eyes. “He invited me to a frat meeting at 9:00. It’s early, because...I don’t know, “academic pressures” or something like that.” He raised a shoulder in the air warily. 

“Maybe that was his way of saying ‘weeding out the weak’.” He tried to shoo any bitterness from his tone. Joining a fraternity was one of the things his father had most wanted him to do at Georgetown, and he’d wanted to make him proud; whether or not he wanted to join out of his own accord was kind of beside the point, since his father’s joy had been infectious. The fact that Alan had been invited to a meeting on the second day made him only  _ slightly _ bitter.

“You’d better get up too.” Alan said nonchalantly, looping a tie around his neck and tying a Windsor knot. “He invited you.”

“He couldn’t have invited me by texting me directly?”

“Okay, you got me.” Alan laughed gently, folding his starch collar down over the tie. “I asked him if you can come. It sounds intense, I’d like some company.”

“Intense?” He raised an eyebrow. “Is it some sort of tennis fraternity, then? Because, in case it hasn’t occurred to you already, I haven’t played a sport since tee-ball.” 

“No, no. It’s academic based.”

  
That relieved him tremendously. Georgetown wasn’t exactly easy to get into, but he was one of the top in his academic class. He had no idea Alan’s standings, but he was almost positive he was ahead of him. Maybe that was petty, or bitter, but after all the kitchy-kitchy Alan had with Justin, he felt more than decent about having the upper hand in  _ anything.  _ If anything, he could have said he was looking  _ forward  _ to this fraternity meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all know i love comments, and those that have been left so far have been absolutely amazing. they really keep me inspired, and they /certainly/ helped shape my motivation to make this chapter the best it possibly can be. id really appreciate you taking a few moments to leave one. thanks a mil!


	3. since the freshies got the shock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long, guys! the mystery unravels! hope you all are enjoying so far as much as I'm enjoying writing this. the storyboard is entirely done!! some new exciting surprises next chapter incoming!

As he and Alan approached the main lounge of Magis Row building A, Michael felt  _ clinically  _ underdressed. 

He was dressed only in a sweater and ascot over his button down and khakis, and had originally thought Alan’s insistence of a suit jacket and tie was complete overkill. But seeing the two men flanking the door—who looked more like bouncers than anything, with their wide shoulders, strong postures, and aviator shades—dressed in suits so fancy they were practically tuxes and holding roster books did nothing for his self-confidence.

The decor of the place was spotless; white columns either side of the door, trellises of ivy, faded brick all around. In entirety, the entryway looked nothing at all like the dingy lounge of CPB.  _ What had he gotten himself into? _

Alan handled the introductions. Michael prayed his name was in the book. “Alan McCarthy and Michael Kelly?” He asked, and Michael could tell he was trying not to sound terrified.

“Grade?”

“Freshmen.”

The burly man made two ( _ thank god!) _ slashes in his notebook and stuck out a hand, as if waiting for money. When met with silence and stillness, he raised an eyebrow, speaking in an annoyed manner.

“Your  _ phones.” _

“Our—our phones?” Alan had turned into quite the little mouse today, hadn’t he? “Why do you need our phones?”

“Audio and video recording and or picture taking is prohibited in any Omega Phoenix gathering. But since the  _ warning  _ has shown not to be enough, we have a  _ new policy this year. Your phones,  _ _ please. _ _ ” _

There was nothing very please-y about that please.

Still, he and Alan handed their devices over and were quickly hurried inside (“Freshmen in the back”) the lobby; 

Which, by the way, did  _ not  _ exceed (or, frankly, meet) its exterior’s expectations.

There were rows of neat classroom chairs, like those plastic ones you sit at in second grade, arranged facing a central podium at the front of the room. A group of about four or five rows grouped towards the front, and a group of more—about eight or nine rows, give or take—closer to the back. There were already a few kids sitting in both sections. The room looked more-or-less run down, some toilet paper draped around peeling brick columns, a decent amount of empty chip bags on the floor. It perfectly met his expectations of a college lounge, but not here—not Georgetown—not whatever this  _ Omega Phoenix  _ thing was going to be. 

He and Alan made their way to the front row of the back section, sitting down and waiting. Michael meticulously watched all the people who came into the room. It took him a decent amount of time, though, to notice they were all men.

“Is this an all-boys fraternity?” He whispered to Alan. Alan met his eyes with a look of pure terror, but it soon softened (Michael figured he was just on-edge about the fraternity thing in general), and he shrugged a shoulder in the air. He wouldn’t entirely meet his eyes. 

“Justin didn’t tell me that much.” He said nonchalantly. “Just to show up.” Eye-contact was remade, but warily. “That’s the point of a  _ fraternity,  _ though, isn’t it? That’s why girls have sororities?” It was asked a bit pompously, a bit  _ Duh _ -ish, and Michael felt an uneasy churning in his gut. Duh. He shouldn’t have even asked, it made him seem... _ easy,  _ or something. He was still trying to figure out how to fix or otherwise stave off this new wave of embarrassment when the room was plunged into total darkness.

There was some alarmed shouting in the freshman rows, which Michael simply found  _ highly  _ unprofessional, but his eyes desperately searched for Alan’s anyway; a power shortage, he assumed,  _ was  _ a little scary, and he at least wanted a friend to  _ look  _ at.

His ideas about the power shortage were only slightly subverted when he heard the airhorns.

They were loud and raucous and all otherwise completely disturbing, but they were definitely planned—on purpose.  _ Of course.  _ He thought, frowning.  _ Someone turned the lights of to scare us.  _ Some sort of hazing pre-show, he assumed, maybe made to monitor  _ who  _ exactly had screamed (thank God he wasn’t one of them), though he was impressed with the fraternity’s total control over all the lights in the room, the hallway, and even the street lights in the blossoming morning sun behind closed shades. Perhaps Michael had gotten in a bit over his head. Perhaps Michael didn’t know who he was dealing with, so any great action movie would say.

This suspicion was most certainly confirmed when a spotlight focused at the podium onstage, backlighting a silhouette. Some kind of party horn popped some kind of confetti into the view before two more spotlights lit the figure from the front.

Naturally, it was Justin.

“Welcome, Omega Phoenix!” He proclaimed. Cheers uproared from the upper class rows, and some freshman attempted to pathetically reciprocate until Justin silenced everyone like a glorified conductor with a wave of his hands. His control over the room was  _ immense.  _ “I am Justin Stewart. I’m a junior in the political science major. I’m also, obviously, the president of Omega Phoenix.” (More uproarious applause.) 

Justin then picked up a small laser pointer from the podium and pointed it to the right. Perfectly on cue, a  _ fourth  _ spotlight illuminated the wall, the digital projection of a Phoenix bursting into flames and rising forth in a shower of multicolored sparks visible. “Why Omega Phoenix?” Justin asked, as if repeating a question that nobody said out loud. “Like the Omega of Greek Times, our fraternity started as the lowest of the low at Georgetown college 30 years ago. We never forget that—we never forget our scorned, humble beginnings. But more than the omegas that are destined to get knocked down and burned, we rise from the ashes. We are reborn, like the Phoenix.”

It was as if the audience knew to cheer, completely on cue. The freshman reciprocated the moves of the upperclassmen again, a bit more enthusiastically this time, because that was a pretty good speech, all things considered. However,  _ then _ Justin narrowed his eyes to the back rows. Michael could swear Justin’s eyes were almost directly on him, and the smirk on his face was almost— _ almost— _ evil.

“Fresh meat.”

It was only then that Michael realized that the reason he thought Justin’s eyes were almost on him was because they were  _ directly  _ on Alan.

“Freshman, welcome! You’re a handsome bunch, aren’t you?”

Michael’s cheeks grew red.

“There are currently sixty-eight of you sitting in this room.  _ Fifteen  _ of you will become esteemed members of Omega Phoenix by the end of the month.”

Michael was shocked. Fifteen?  _ Fifteen?  _ He’d dragged himself out of bed at eight A.M. on a  _ Saturday  _ and dressed in his finest attire to attend an initiate for a frat that  _ fifteen  _ of them were going to make it into? There was no way. There was simply no way. Michael’s grades were  _ far  _ from the best at that meeting, he was sure of it, and though he had no idea Alan’s academic standing,  _ best out of 86 _ didn’t quite seem probable. It appeared Alan had the same reaction to this he did, as a soft sputtering noise was soon heard.

The rest of the meeting was entirely formal and quite stuffy, really, even by his standards; they talked about initiation, which of course consisted of submissions of resumes and transcripts, followed by interviews for a small few chosen; and from that number, they would pick their fifteen. Michael was sure the stereotypical frat hazing would follow, and he was sure he wouldn’t make it to the interview stage. Still, it cost him nothing to submit the materials (except maybe his dignity), so for Alan’s sake, he would.

“That’s all, everyone! Have a nice Saturday!” Some snickering from the front rows. If anything, Michael would give Justin his charisma. Afterwards, he managed to catch him alone _(thankfully,_ after he'd been reuinited with his phone), despite the gaggle of people surrounding him. “Hey!” Justin chirped, angling an ice coffee his way. “Thanks for showing up.” He took a sip of his coffee, long and languid, before thrusting it into Michael’s hands, suddenly. “Hold that.” He smirked, giving no further instruction before running off into the distance in a cloud of intrigue and mystery.

“And don’t go anywhere!”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you guys are enjoying, some comments would really help keep my motivation going!

**Author's Note:**

> to those of you reading, welcome to the early party train and thanks for stopping by! I'd really appreciate a comment or two, they genuinely keep me thriving. <3!


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